The Visit
by William Easley
Summary: WARNING: Very dark moments here. Grunkle Ford's just passing through Piedmont-or is he? The Mystery Twins are ready to help him find an elusive witness . . . and survive the encounter, if they can. Some disturbing situations and characters may creep in. Set in January, 2015, with connections to the long story "Pining For Christmas."
1. Chapter 1

**The Visit**

 **(January 30-31, 2015)**

* * *

 **1**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** Friday afternoon: Because track season begins in a week, Coach Dinson had us practice until nearly five, and then we broke up to go home. It was a good session, and I'm happy with the JV's chances. Our first meet is small, just four other schools, and I think we've got an edge on all of them, so I'm hoping for some early wins to get the team morale way up there.

So anyway, we left the track and climbed uphill to the gym and hit the showers. I still feel self-conscious in a mob of laughing, joking naked guys! They rag on me a lot about having "a girlfriend in Canada," even though a couple of my teammates stand up for me and talk about the gorgeous redhead who showed up last year at the finals.

Anyway, I showered fast and dressed and walked out of the gym alone, swinging my workout bag. I can walk home from the school—it's only a couple miles—but usually I catch a ride with one of the Varsity guys, unless I want to have some thinking time.

This afternoon, though, as soon as I came out of the front doors of the gym, I saw my Grunkle Ford, standing there in his black pants and his burgundy-colored turtleneck sweater. Um, not the one that Mabel knitted for him with "Silver Fox" appliquéd on it, but just the plain kind he usually wears. Oh, speaking of that, Mabel says that now he's looking younger, she's going to have to make him a different sweater, but she says, "Brown-haired fox" doesn't have the same ring. She's still thinking about what she plans to put on it.

Anyway, I was real surprised to see my Grunkle standing there patiently. "What are you doing here?" I asked. I guess that sounded rude, but I didn't mean it that way.

He chuckled. "It's good to see you, too, Ma—ah, Dipper. Oh, I had some business in the Bay Area, so I thought I'd drop in for a quick visit. I've called ahead and spoken to your mother already. She, ah, has invited me to stay in the guest room tonight."

"That's great!" I said. All around us the team, both guys and girls, were pouring out of the gym, chatting and laughing.

"I have a car," Ford said. "This way."

It was a rental, a bronze Subatsi Seppuku mid-sized sedan. Ford opened the trunk with a remote, and I tossed in my gym bag, next to his brown suitcase. Then we got in the car. He's as big as Grunkle Stan—well, that goes without saying, they're twins—and he had a hard time squeezing into the driver's seat until he reached down and slipped the seat back about six inches. "That's better," he said. "I should have done that when I first drove the car from the rental agency!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Oh, things on my mind, you know how it is." Ford, fussing with the dash, grumbled, "I really don't approve of all the changes they've made to automobiles in the past thirty-odd years. I don't even have a real key for this, just a little microchipped fob that remotely opens the doors and the trunk lid. The car somehow senses that it's aboard and lets you start the engine without a real key, if you remember how. Somewhere there's a device to start the engine, but I don't recall just where—"

"Uh, the little black button that says 'Start' in white letters," I suggested, pointing.

Ford perked up. "Ah, so it is. This vehicle is a hybrid, you know. It's not actually a cross between two different brands of car, but it runs partly on electricity, partly on gasoline."

"I . . . yeah, I've heard of that," I replied, trying not to laugh.

He put the car into reverse to back out of the parking slot. "And look! There's even a color television screen on the dash that shows what's behind the car, preventing me from backing over a pedestrian or hitting another vehicle. I do like that feature, but there's also an annoying computer voice that keeps telling me to take turns I don't want to take."

"Um, that would be the GPS," I told him. As soon as the rear display was off the screen, I got into the GPS menu. "Here, this is the trouble. The last person who rented it had the airport set as destination and it must not have been cleared out. It's been trying to direct you back to the rental agency." I fixed the GPS, cancelling the route, and silenced it.

"Much better! Excellent work," Ford said. We got to the street. "Thank you, Mason. That voice was most annoying. Now—which way do I turn for your house?"

I could have set the GPS, but instead I just said, "Turn right here at the light. I'll navigate."

Again, he said, "Thank you, Mason."

I smiled. "Thanks for calling me 'Dipper' back at the gym, Grunkle Ford. Though the meet programs always list me as 'Mason,' so everybody at school knows now." That isn't really accurate. Most of the students don't follow the track team.

"Ah, but your friends still call you 'Dipper,'" Grunkle Ford said understandingly.

"Uh, yeah, right . . . all my friends call me that." Now that my pinkies have come in, I can count my friends at school on one hand. I mean, I've got some friendly _teammates,_ but real friends? Not so many of them. About half my high school class came from my old elementary school, where everyone knew me as an uncool nerd. I guess I'm still a little paranoid about getting close to other people, and it's hard for me to make new friends, or any friends, really. "Left here, and then the next right."

He wouldn't tell me why he was here—"Let's save that until Mabel can join us and we can all discuss it"—but he did ask me about the publisher and my progress on my young-adult novel.

"It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be," I told him. "The editor wanted about half a dozen small changes, toning down a little bit of the violence—not taking it out, but, like, saying that when the Gnarl is caught with the leaf blower and blasted into the forest, I just had to add a line that went something like, 'The twins didn't know it, but Gnarls are extra-tough, and the flight over the trees and the crash didn't hurt Joff at all. In fact, though he was a little angry at his wedding plot being foiled, he sort of wanted to take the ride again.' Then the editor found some typos and stuff, too, but they were easy to fix. I've already sent the revised manuscript back, and if the editor likes all the changes, the next step is for the company to send the first check to the agent."

"Impressive! You're way ahead of schedule! Congratulations, young man!"

I smiled. Dad was kind of surprised that I had a book accepted, and Mom kept wondering if it was going to affect my grades. Mabel complained that the character based on her wasn't glamorous enough.

Grunkle Ford was the first relative of mine to whole-heartedly approve of my trying to be a writer.

I smiled, sighed, and said, "Yes. But now I'll start plotting out the next one, the lake-monster book. They want me to turn that in by September. OK, now we're getting into our neighborhood. Next right, and then the next right after that, and then down to the end of the street."

"Of course. Now I recognize it."

I looked out the passenger window as we passed our old house. It's already been sold, though I don't know who bought it, and whoever it is hasn't moved in yet. It feels kind of weird going past it every day, like part of me still wants to go in the door, up the stairs, and into my old room. I hope the new family likes the place and treats it well.

We reached the cul-de-sac, where Ford pulled into our driveway—it's double-wide, and I told him to park on the left, because Dad usually pulls into the right side of the garage—and we got out.

Mabel came zooming out of the front door and threw herself on Grunkle Ford for a bear hug. "It's been like _forever_!" she said at the top of her lungs.

"Um, it's been twenty-five days," I corrected her. "You and I got back from Gravity Falls on the fourth of January."

" _Seems_ like forever!" she said. "Where's your suitcase? Dipper, you can carry your stinky gym clothes. Got it! Wow, you bought a rolling suitcase! Welcome to the twenty-first century!"

"It was handy for our trip to Paris," Ford said, laughing as Mabel hauled the suitcase out of the trunk and extended the tow handle.

"Yeah, where's Graunty Lorena?" Mabel demanded as she started to trundle the suitcase along the walk to the front door.

"Lorena has to work," Ford said. "Well—she doesn't _have_ to, but she loves her job. She's on the desk at the museum library this weekend, so she couldn't come."

Mom met us at the door. Ford hugged her—he's still awkward about things like that—and she said, "The guest room is all ready for you, Uncle Stanford."

"Thank you, Wanda," he said. "I plan to fly back Sunday, so it will only be the two nights. I hope I'm not intruding."

She laughed, sounding surprisingly like Mabel. "You _can't_ intrude," she said. "You're family!" That's a new thing with Mom. Until she and Dad met our Grunkles and spent some time with them, I never heard her speak so warmly of family. I like it when she does.

"Dip and I will put your suitcase away!" Mabel announced. "Come on, Brobro! Forward, mush!"

She didn't really need any help, but I know a hint when Mabel gives me one. I've learned to spot them early to avoid a sharp elbow in my ribs. I mean, some of Mabel's hints have left me with actual bruises. We went down the hall.

The guest room is across from my parents' bedroom, and the guest-room windows look out over the front lawn. Since we're at the end of a cul-de-sac, there's not much traffic, so at night it's quiet and you don't get headlights waking you up at all hours. Sometimes we do get sirens from over on Oakland Avenue as ambulances race toward the Kaiser hospital, but even that isn't awfully loud.

Mabel grunted as she plopped the suitcase on the bed, then demanded, "Why's he here, Dip? Is he working on some case? Some big conspiracy? An international threat to world peace? Are the woodpeckers suing for divorce? What? Spill it!"

"I—don't know," I said. "He just told me he had business in the Bay Area. But I think it involves you and me. He said he wanted to talk to us privately, but he wanted to wait until we're all together."

"Mom and Dad, too?"

"Uh, no, I think just us."

"Time's a-wasting!" Mabel pronounced, and she thundered back down the hall.

I followed more slowly. I knew that we wouldn't get a chance to talk privately until after dinner, anyhow.

But I had a bad feeling, because I couldn't help wondering—

Maybe Grunkle Ford had a lead on whoever had created that thing that summoned the T'klatlumodh that had attacked Wendy.

Like Mabel, I wanted to find out what Ford was up to.

Unlike her, I knew that I'd just have to wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

* * *

As soon as the Pines family finished dinner that night, Mabel and Dipper leaped up to clear the table and load the dishwasher. The adults went to the den for coffee (decaf, Wanda Pines insisted on that) and chat.

"We gotta find what's up!" Mabel whispered to Dipper as they loaded the silverware in the dishwasher tray. "This is making me all bonkers!"

"Mabel, shh!" Dipper replied. "Grunkle Ford suggested a plan. We'll get a little alone time with him. Listen—"

And he told her what he and Ford had talked about and about the suggestion Ford had quickly given him while Mom and Mabel had been busy in the kitchen, just before Dad got home from work. "Just leave it alone until we finish in here," Dipper said. "Then we'll make our move."

As they cleaned the dining room and kitchen, sweeping off random crumbs, giving the table a quick polish, straightening the chairs, and tidying the kitchen counters and sink, they could hear the murmur of conversation from the adults, punctuated by an occasional laugh.

In twenty minutes, though, Mabel—as planned—interrupted them: "Grunkle Ford! Can I borrow you for just a little while? You gotta come upstairs and look at what we've done with our rooms!"

"Mabel, we're talking," her Mom said. "I'm sorry, Uncle Ford."

"No need to be," Ford said. "I'm glad that Mason and Mabel are enjoying their new home."

"We are!" Mabel said. "And we've done all the decorating ourselves! Well, mostly me, because Dipper doesn't have any esthetic sensibility—"

"Maybe," Dad said, "it would be better just to run upstairs and have a quick look."

"Ah, yes!" Ford said brightly. "Alex, Wanda, if you'll excuse me, I'll take a brief tour with the twins."

"You could do that tomorrow," Mabel's mom suggested.

Ford had already risen to his feet. "No, no, I'd like to see the rooms. I have . . . uh, an interest in . . . teenagers' bedrooms . . . in case Lorena and I ever, um, adopt. A teen."

Dipper, standing outside the doorway, slapped his forehead and thought, _Sheesh!_ _Soos could've made a better save than that!_

But Mabel pled, "It won't take ten minutes! Please?"

"Go ahead," Mom said, though she still sounded a bit grumpy.

The twins and their great-uncle hurried upstairs. In Mabel's room, Ford said quietly, "All right, we don't have much time. I believe I have located Susan Flowers Blurchard. She's in a facility in San Pablo. Where is that?"

"Uh, north of Richmond," Dipper said. "East Bay Area, up highway 80. It's about as far from here as Mill Valley is. Did you say _facility_?"

"A long-term care facility," Ford said slowly. "She evidently isn't in good physical condition. I'm going there tomorrow to try to visit and interview her. However, I need to go in equipped. Here's what I need you to do, if you can manage it."

The quick instructions took less than ten minutes. Ford then glanced into Dipper's bedroom because he hated to tell a barefaced lie. "Isn't that Wendy's fur hat?" he asked, spotting it on Dipper's bed.

"They trade hats every year at the end of the summer," Mabel said. "Because they're in love!"

"Mabel!"

"It's all right, Mason," Ford said softly. "You're growing up, and it's none of my business."

Dipper didn't say anything, but he gave Ford a nod, a little sign of manly understanding between two guys. He hoped.

Ford said, "I'll see you both tomorrow morning," and then left the twins upstairs.

"Brobro!" Mabel said, urgently tugging at Dipper's shirt sleeve. "We gotta get in on this! I say we stow away. I'll ride in the trunk of Ford's car, you bungee-strap yourself underneath it—"

"I think we'd better just ask if we can go along," Dipper said. "OK, let's get out your art stuff. I think I can remember that crazy CD case."

From the shared music and crafts room that separated their bedrooms, Mabel dug out the white plastic cutting board (made from recycled milk jugs) that she used as a portable drawing desk, a sketch pad, and a pack of multicolored pencils. "Let's go to my room," she said. "More privacy."

Yeah, Dipper thought, if you didn't count all those musicians staring at you from the posters she'd papered her room with. Juster Beeble, Bradney Sampson, Ashley Irvine, Zany Milkshake, and a dozen others smiled, smirked, scowled, or leered from every wall. Mabel's boy-crazy phase had, um, never phased out.

Mabel hopped onto the edge of her bed, put the cutting board across her knees, and tore a sheet from the sketch pad. She poised a charcoal pencil over the paper. "Ok, describe it to me in your own words, and let me do my magic!"

"Well," Dipper said, frowning. "I'll try—wait, what? My own words? Whose words would I—oh, skip it. Let me see. First, this thing wasn't the shape of a CD jewel case. I mean, a jewel case is a square, but this one was a rectangle. More like a DVD case, you know, or the shape of a paperback, I guess? Six inches wide by nine inches tall, or close to that."

With her pink tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth, kicking her heels as she sat on the bed, Mabel roughed out a rectangular shape.

Dipper sat beside her. "I was wrong. A little squattier, I guess? Try about five inches by, um, seven? Yeah, that's better, those are about the right proportions. But the corners are, like, more rounded? It wasn't plastic, or if it was, it was covered in some kinda leather-like coating, so try to give it, I don't know, a soft look? That's better, that's close. OK, the edges of it had these x-shaped strips of what looked like rawhide."

Mable got a scratch sheet and tried. "Like this?"

"Smaller than that. There were, I think, two to each side and two on both top and bottom. They were like, um, laces. Maybe holding the leather to whatever the inside was made of."

"Oh, I think I know what you mean. 'Bout here for the first one?" She poised her pencil over the top left corner of the rectangle.

"Mm, down along the edge about an inch. Yeah, that's close. They were, you know, symmetrical."

Mabel sketched them in, one at a time. "OK, what next?"

Dipper stared at the shape. "This is the hard part. The front had a monster face on it. Not printed, but kinda molded from the leather, sculpted, you know? Angry eyes. Do some angry eyes on the scratch pad."

"Here you go."

"No, no, do just the shape of the eye, you know, don't draw in the irises and all. Real fierce-looking, monstery angry eyes. Um . . . OK, you know like when Spook vamps out in _Muffy the Vampire Staker_?"

"Beetley-browed? Let me try a few," Mabel said. "I love Spook's British accent!"

"It isn't real."

Pausing only to stick her tongue out at her brother, Mabel drew eight variant eye shapes, and Dipper stopped her. "That last one," he said. "But sort of fat bunchy eyelids on the top. No, like toward the nose—yeah, that's close, that's close! And the eyes were just black—no pupils or whites. Just black, like—"

"Like a skull's eye sockets," Mabel said. She refined the shape and colored in the eye. "How's that?"

"Good, good. I think the eyelid sort of angled up on more, starting low on the inside and coming up higher on the outside."

"Really mad eyes," Mabel said, making the correction.

Dipper leaned in, staring. "Perfect! You got it!"

Carefully, she added angry eyes to her sketch of the cover, with Dipper showing her placement and size.

"Now—"

"Nose!"

"Um—no nose."

Mabel glanced at him. "Then how's he smell? Terrible? Nyuck-nyuck!"

"Mabel, this is serious." Dipper thought. "There were some short, um, wrinkles, I guess? Maybe four of them, very short, in the leather where the nose should be. The mouth came up almost to the eyes, though, so there's not a lot of space."

"Horizontal wrinkles?"

"No, vertical or slanted." Dipper closed his eyes and visualized the cover. He hadn't tried to memorize it at the time, but he did have a good visual recall. "Ok, on the scratch pad, try this: Draw two upside-down V's, side by side, except don't let the lines quite touch at the sharp end."

"Cray-cray," muttered Mabel, but she tried twice.

"That's close," Dipper said. "Center those between and a little below the eyes, where the bridge of a nose would go."

The mouth. That was a problem. Dipper remembered its shape, but it was hard to describe. Mabel used up a scratch sheet and started another. "This is getting us nowhere," she proclaimed. "OK, Dip, try this: Think of something it would look like if you were just seeing the shape. A sad clown mouth? A crescent moon doing downward dog? A bent hot dog? What?"

Dipper grimaced. "OK, this is gonna sound goofy, but imagine a small cereal bowl with a flat bottom. Now put a big long banana on top of it, curved side pointing up, ends drooping down over the edges of the bowl, toward the table the bowl's on. That's the shape it made."

"O-kayyyy." Mabel sketched the cereal-bowl shape, while Dipper refined and critiqued it. "Now I'll put the banana—"

"Rounded stem and blossom end, not pointy," Dipper said helpfully.

Mabel made a quizzical little "huh" sound in her throat. "Blossom end? Bananas have blossoms?"

"Yeah. They grow on herbs, you know, not trees."

She gave him a sideways glance. "Get out of town!"

"Just draw."

She finished the shape. "How's that?"

"Yeah, that's very close. OK, now inside the mouth—"

"Forked tongue, right?"

"No, no," Dipper said. "It had teeth—I think they might have been real teeth, what do you call it, inlaid in the leather—"

"People teeth? Yuck!"

"More like, um, fish teeth. Very pointy. There were, um . . . eight of them. The front middle two were bigger, and they gradually got smaller off to the sides. They didn't go all the way across the banana shape—they were sort of within the boundary of the cereal-bowl shape on the bottom. No, they weren't that big. Smaller. Yeah, still smaller. That's about right."

When the teeth were done, Dipper frowned. "There was a sort of inside-of-the-mouth. It looked like a squashed-up human skull. Not the lower jaw, just the cranium and face bits. Stylized, like a Jack-o-Lantern face—round eye sockets, a triangle nose. Oh, and the teeth weren't realistic, more like two big fangs on the outside and three or four smaller sharp middle teeth. They didn't touch the bottom lip, though."

Again, Mabel practiced on the scratch sheet. Then she completed the mouth on the main drawing. "Close?"

"Real close," Dipper said admiringly. "Now color it in. The face is sort of a greeny-bluey-gray color . . .."

By the time Mabel had finished, Dipper said, "Mabel, that's great."

At ten, Ford came upstairs to say goodnight to the twins, and Dipper showed him the sketch. Ford studied it closely. "My word! It is uncannily like the sole bound volume of the _Necronomicon_ held on the Secret Shelf in the Secret Museum of Istanbul. The leather of that book's binding is rumored to be made of human flesh. It's one of the Museum's most secret secrets! No stranger is ever permitted to touch or even look at that secret book!"

"How did _you_ see that?" Mabel asked.

"It's a secret."

"Uh, Grunkle Ford," Dipper said, "is there any chance we could go with you tomorrow?"

Their great-uncle looked dubious.

"I'm very empathetic," Mabel said in a wheedling tone. "If you can't get Susan to talk, I might be able to persuade her. Gently, I mean. Not in any way involving a baseball bat wrapped in electrical tape."

Ford sighed. "Kids, from what I've learned—and tracking her down was a problem, I'll tell you that—Mrs. Burchard is not communicative. The place that she's in is a charity nursing facility. The person with whom I spoke told me that the patient hasn't spoken coherently for many years now. It won't be pretty."

"We can take it," Mabel said. "And I already feel sorry for her. Come on, Grunkle Ford. We've been in tough places before."

"And," Dipper said, "we are Pines."

"Pineses!" Mabel corrected.

"Members of the Pines family!" Dipper said.

Ford smiled. "You do," he admitted, "have a point."


	3. Chapter 3

**The Visit**

 **(January 30-31, 2015)**

* * *

 **3**

As far as Mr. and Mrs. Pines knew, the kids were riding along with Grunkle Ford on a sort of outing—he had a brief meeting, and then they'd show him some of the sights in the area.

But on the way north along the Interstate, Ford himself was having second thoughts. "You kids might not want to come in with me," he said. "From what they say, she may not be a pretty sight."

"Maybe we can cheer her up," Mabel suggested.

"I think you need someone with you," Dipper insisted, trying not to sound nervous. "We want to be with you, Grunkle Ford."

Ford glanced at the kids, beside him in the front seat, fondly. "Very well. I've called ahead. You must know, she's had no visitors in a long while. Your role is that you may be distant relatives of her late husband's. I'm sort of a counselor slash lawyer just making sure that she is unable to care for you. Just a formality."

"OK," Dipper said.

The nursing home was across the street from a ten-story modern hospital, tall and white, but the care facility was much more modest, a sprawling one-story wood-frame building painted pale yellow and looking like a ranch house that had grown out of knowledge. A wooden sign, with a blue background, held the painted legend "Sisters of Grace Long-Term Care" beneath a simple white silhouette of a dove.

Ford found a parking space and they got out. Ford opened the back door and retrieved a leatherette portfolio. "Let's go."

They had to ring in at the front door. A middle-aged woman in a white nun's habit, complete with wimple, came smiling to an inner door, unlocked it, and then stepped across the vestibule and unlocked the outer one. "Come in," she said. "We have patients with dementia, so we have to make sure they don't wander out. I'll give you the front-door code for future visits."

"Thank you," Ford said, accepting a business card from her. "I am Stanford Pines, and these are Mabel and Mason. I arranged for this with the director by phone earlier this week. We've come to visit Susan Blurchard."

"I'm Sister Mary Catherine," the nun said. "Really? That poor woman has never had a single visitor, you know. She's been with us for three years, ever since a neighbor called us and told us she was just wasting away in her lonely apartment, never going out, and—we found out—not even eating. All alone, poor thing. Come with me."

The place had an indefinable smell of mustiness and medicines. Everything was clean enough—clean but very plain. The sisters had put up bulletin boards with colorful paper flowers and bright pictures, but they didn't do much to lighten the mood. An old woman in a wheelchair sat listing to one side, staring into the distance and tonelessly humming—no tune, just a long-sustained note. An old man in a bathrobe, leaning on a walker, shuffled close to Ford and asked anxiously, "Has my son come yet?"

"No, Mr. Redall," the nun said kindly, patting his wrinkled old hand. "But he always comes every Saturday afternoon, and it's still morning. Just be patient."

She led them to a separate wing, through two more locked doors, where they signed in at a desk. "Are you relatives?" the nun there asked.

Ford coughed. "Well—we're not certain. The twins are related to a Blurchard—third cousins—but we don't know if there's any direct relation to Mrs. Blurchard's late husband. That's what we hope to learn. It's a legal necessity, I'm afraid."

"I think," the nun said quietly, "you'll be disappointed. There's a visiting room at the end of the hall. If you'll wait there, I'll have a nurse bring Susan down to you. Don't expect much."

"Very well."

The shabby room had two cracked sofas, a couple of easy chairs, and a window looking out onto a tiny walled garden with a small trickling fountain and clusters of bougainvillea in bright pink on trellises. No one was in the garden.

Dipper and Mabel waited on one of the sofas, Dipper fidgeting, Mabel kicking her feet. Ford sat next to them in an easy chair. After a few minutes, the door opened, and a nurse backed in, pulling a wheelchair. "Here we are," she said brightly. "Susan, you have visitors today. Isn't that nice? I'll leave you alone now. Just ring the bell there—" she pointed to a button on a long gray cord that fed out of the baseboard—"when you've finished your little chat."

Dipper couldn't help staring at the woman in the wheelchair. She shouldn't be more than forty-one, but she seemed much older, thin and gaunt, her faded blonde hair trimmed short, like a boy's, her arms painfully thin and crossed on her lap. They had dressed her in aqua slacks and a white sweater with sleeves rolled up to her elbows, both garments baggy on her. She wore hospital scuffs, not shoes. She did not slump, but she showed no interest in them, no awareness at all. She seemed a million miles away.

And alone. So alone.

* * *

 _At almost the same time, in Bogotá, 3,800 miles away from San Francisco . . .._

The old man's name was not Restrepo. That was only his business name, and since his business was not a legal business, the name was only an assumed name.

He looked crickety, a skinny-limbed old man with a wrinkled face as sun-seamed as a tortoise's, with brown eyes nested in furrows beneath shaggy drooping white brows. He must have been tall as a youth, but age had bowed and shrunk him. He opened the outer glass door, which swung inward, and then the outer steel gate, which swung outward (the glass door was bulletproof) He tilted his head and stared at his visitor, whom he had been told to expect.

"Jairo Restrepo?"

The voice came out as a husky rasp: "Who asks?"

"Señor Silbón sent me to you."

The glazed old eyes studied him for a moment and the wrinkled lips quirked as though at a small joke. "Then come in."

There was, in fact, no Señor Silbón. "El Silbón" was a figure from a bogey tale, a ghostly monster carrying a bag of bones who will pause at your door in the dead of night, count all the bones in the bag one by one (they are said to be his father's), and whistle a soul-freezing tune as he does so, a magic tune immobilizing all who hear it. If he finishes the count before dawn—no one in your house will survive. Pray for a slow count.

Restrepo's visitor paused, glancing around with caution. In the mists and dimness before sunrise, the house, a narrow brick building on a neglected, littered street with no name, only a number, looked no different from its neighbors: a small war-battered fortress, protected by steel and bulletproof glass and heavy door from the sorrows of a city torn by gang violence.

"Come in, come in," Restrepo said with the short patience of the old.

The visitor stepped across the threshold, and the old man carefully re-locked the steel gate, then swung and double-bolted the glass door, and finally shut the massive wooden inner door—made of braúna wood, Brazilian cashew, one of the hardest and most durable woods in the world and further strengthened by riveted straps of steel—locked it, double-locked it, bolted it, and chained it.

The rooms lay in gloom. The windows had all been bricked up. Only a hanging low-wattage bare bulb gave any illumination. It painted black shadows in the wrinkles of the old man's face.

"You are in the market?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You know my name."

" Señor Restrepo."

"Yours?"

"Call me Cuco."

Restrepo shook his head and made a bitter sort of smile. He wheezed—difficult to recognize that as a laugh, but it was. "Silbón. Cuco. I deal with fairy tales."

El Cuco was, in fact, the name of another childhood bogeyman. He was the embodiment of darkness. He came as a nearly formless humanoid figure, a cloud of midnight, but his head was visible as something round and white: a skull. He came in the night and ate children.

The Portuguese called him Coco, and in fact they had named the coconut after him. Coconut trees are palms, and palms typically have three carpels in their blossoms. That is why the nut, an enormous seed, has three holes in the end, one for each carpel of the blossom. The mature coconut's appearance when looked at from the blossom end, like two eye sockets and a round nasal cavity, reminded the Portuguese explorers of the tales that had frightened them when they were children.

"Let us talk business," Restrepo said.

* * *

"Susan?" Ford asked quietly. "Mrs. Blurchard? Do you hear me?"

She didn't respond.

Mabel came and stood beside the still figure, gently touching her arm. "Susan? Trish?"

The woman in the wheelchair might have been carved from stone. She gave no reaction whatever.

"Listen," Mabel said. She took out her phone, held it up between them, and started playing a tune—not at high volume, which was just as well, because it was a head-banging metal tune, the chords jarring. A woman's raw voice ripped into the lyrics: "Got no future, got no hope / Gave away my soul to—"

Nothing flickered in Susan's eyes, though the singer's voice was hers, performing on an album as Trish Razor, twenty-three years earlier. A million years ago.

"Try the picture, Grunkle Ford," Dipper suggested.

"I meant it only as a last resort, but—well, this seems a situation for last resorts." Ford unzipped the portfolio and took out Mabel's sketch of the weird CD cover. He held it up before her. "Susan? Do you recognize this?"

Dipper felt shivers running up his spine. The woman's faded light-blue eyes focused. Her expression, vacant and blank, somehow changed—he couldn't tell how.

Then in a dry but cheerful whisper, Susan spoke: "Do you want me naked? Did you bring whips?"

Her smile was bright and chilling and completely insane.

* * *

The front room of old Restrepo's house was a mess, cluttered, with scatters of books and magazines on a sagging table, a threadbare sofa, three chairs that leaned on loose legs. The kitchen was not much better. It was slovenly, the stove scattered with dirty pots and pans, and the room smelled of spices, beans, and cooked goat meat.

"To business. Sit," Restrepo said, pulling a spavined chair away from the table. "Coffee?"

The chair creaked under his weight. "No."

"Then, Señor Cuco, will you take some wine? A dainty, small glass?" There was a hint of grandeur in the old man's language, as if he used to be a professor.

"I don't drink wine."

"I do." Restrepo poured himself a quarter-glass of red wine and, holding it like a connoisseur, he sat across the table from his guest. "Paxarette," he said, smacking his lips in anticipation. "From Chile. Sweet. Takes away morning fog." He drained the small glass in one long swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. "Now. I have heard from your fiend with the fairy-tale name what you are looking for. Will you confirm it?"

Resting both of his long-fingered, bony hands on the table, the visitor nodded. "I need United States identification. Four items, all in the same name: Birth certificate. Social Security card. Driving license. Passport."

"I can do all four," Restrepo said. "They will cost."

The visitor shrugged. "Everything has its cost."

"Mm." Restrepo leaned back in his chair and tried to read this man. He was well-dressed in a light-gray suit, white shirt open at the throat—no tie. His hair had been cropped to a dark shadow on his head. He looked foreign—though Restrepo couldn't name a country where he might look at home. The eyes seemed a little odd, almond-shaped, hooded, the color so dark it might be black. The face was clean-shaven and not old, not young, somewhere in the middle. Forty? Maybe. Shoes were good quality. Such men might have a great deal of money. They might derive it from illegal work. They could be dangerous men.

"These will have to be of excellent quality," Cuco said. "I can have no complications at the border."

"You speak good English?"

"Yes."

"Let me hear. Long ago I studied in Massachusetts. I will know."

In English, Cuco said, "I need authentic-looking documents that can deceive Customs agents and any law-enforcement people I might encounter in the States. While I am there, I will need to pass as a native, or at least an immigrant of long residence. I have business there that I wish to keep confidential. How is that?"

"Good, good," Restrepo said in Spanish. "You have no regional accent that I can place, but you do sound American. I can work up a passable set of papers for you for, oh, let us say five thousand dollars American."

"And if I want better than merely passable?"

Restrepo made a palms-raised gesture. "The very best? That would be twenty-five thousand U.S. dollars, minimum. Minimum! Depending on how much work is necessary, the items might run to twice that. The demand is very high, and the supplies are hard to come by."

"Show me, unless you object to that."

"I have no objection." the old man rose from his chair and carefully set the bottle of wine back on a counter. "Follow me."

* * *

Ford struggled to speak, his voice catching. Dipper had heard him choked up this much just once before, when they thought Stan was gone, his memory, his mind, erased forever. "Listen, Susan, we mean you no harm. Do you understand?"

"No," she said. And the heart-breaking thing for Dipper was clearly that she told the truth. She expected harm from _everyone._

Ford took a long, unsteady breath. "Listen to me, Susan. You will obey me." He grimaced as though hating his own words, his own voice.

"Yes."

"We want nothing of you. We will not hurt you or—or abuse you or use you in any way. Just talk to us. Please tell us about this picture."

"Yes."

"Where have you seen something that looked like this before?"

"My husband. He had it. When we lived in Mill Valley."

"Was this when you were musicians?"

"Yes. The last year we had a group. Before the group broke up."

"Did your husband—use this to—to control you?"

"Yes."

"Where did he get it?"

Her eyes suddenly flinched, and she shuddered. This time her voice didn't come out as a near-whisper, but a stifled breathy scream: _"From the devil!"_

* * *

Cuco followed Restrepo, though the old man headed toward a mere bare stretch of wall in his living room. "It is below," he said in a crafty voice.

The narrow stair was cleverly concealed in a niche between a chimney and a set of wall shelves. Part of the scratched and dirty parquet floor pivoted when pressed in one corner and then lifted away, and the opening led down some narrow stone steps with no handrail. Lights came on automatically as the two men descended. The air was cooler, too.

In contrast to the messy old-man's home on the main floors, this basement room, about twenty feet square, had the clean, severe utilitarian lines of a workshop in some major governmental facility. One whole wall was lined with beige metal filing cabinets. A second wall had a long table against it with two computers and a professional-looking printer. More equipment, perhaps for laminating and such operations, stood on either side of the printer. A narrow door, closed, was in the niche between the printer counter and a table to the right.

Five strong lamps and an array of three magnifying lenses in gooseneck stands stood on this table, shoved against the wall opposite the filing cabinets. Cubbyholes held tools and materials. In one corner of the room a flaking metal folding chair stood in front of a stand that held flip-down fabric sheets in many colors, and a tripod-mounted camera stared at the chair. The linoleum floor looked antiseptic in the fluorescent glow.

"I work here," Restrepo said. "The workshop is costly to create and maintain. What I do is very demanding and precise work. I must be paid accordingly."

"I understand," Cuco said.

The old man looked at him. "Do you have a particular name in mind?"

"No."

"Good. That simplifies things." Tilting his head back, Restrepo stroked his chin and neck, making a sound like sandpaper on balsa wood. "I have a beautiful birth certificate, a legitimate birth certificate. The child was born in the fall of 1976 in New York State. The baby was a male, sickly—there was some pollution problem with the water, I believe."

"That is of no interest to me."

Ignoring him, Restrepo continued: "The father was an American citizen. The mother was Paraguayan, but a naturalized U.S. citizen. They left the States when the boy was a year old. He was born an American citizen, you see. He even had a Social Security number, God knows why the Americans issue them to babies."

"I begin to understand now."

"Sadly, the child died in South America, before his third birthday. The father became involved with unsavory people. He vanished. He is dead, you may be sure. The mother is dead now, too. No one in the States misses them or wonders what happened to them. Don't worry about how I acquired the certificate and the Social Security card. But with these two to build on, I can construct for you a driver's license and a passport that will stand any scrutiny. For the price, you know."

"Do it."

"Something up front," Restrepo said.

The man opened a wallet and counted out twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills. "Will this do? Ten per cent?"

"The rest in cash?" Restrepo asked.

"On delivery."

Restrepo's hand reached out, and his fingers, like a spider's legs gathering in a web-wrapped victim, swept in the bills. "Give me," he said, "three days."

"No. I need them today."

"Then it will be more."

"I can get more."

"I will need to photograph you for the license and the passport. Passport first. Sit over there in the chair."

The old man pulled a big cardboard box out from under a counter. It was large enough to hold a compact refrigerator, which in fact was what the Spanish label on the side claimed, but Restrepo rummaged in it and emerged with a black wig. "Because you would have been four years younger when the picture was taken," he said. "Put it on."

The wig was dark, curly, short. In full daylight it would fool no one up close, but in a photo—

Restrepo fussed with the wig, adjusting it. "There. Now it will pass for real. Wait." He opened the narrow door and came out with a garment on a hanger.

"You are not a frequent traveler. You would have dressed up for the photo. Remove your jacket, please. It can rest in your lap. Here, arms in the sleeves, and—" Restrepo leaned forward and fastened the false garment with Velcro strips. It looked like a dark blue jacket over a pale blue shirt with a tie, black with a repeated pattern of crimson shields.

"Harvard tie," Restrepo said, first touching the tie and then brushing out wrinkles in the collar. "People trust a Harvard man." He fussed with Cuco's appearance a little more, applying a quick coat of makeup from a stick. "To make you younger," he said again. "To hide the shadow of beard."

That done, he stepped behind the camera and snapped a dozen quick photos, one after the other.

"Now," he said, stepping forward and removing the false jacket, "Put on your own coat again. Here is a moist towel to wipe the color from your chin. We do another photograph for the driving license." He peeled the wig off Cuco's head. Then he stepped back and flipped through the fabric backgrounds until he found a blue one. "This is the right color."

As he adjusted the camera, he said, "Your birthday will be November first. Can you remember that?"

"Easily. The Day of the Dead."

Restrepo grinned. "Yes, good. Illinois licenses are issued for four years. This one will expire on November first of next year, 2016, you understand. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes."

Restrepo held up his hand. "Look at my finger. Steady. Now." This time he made only three exposures. "People don't expect drivers' licenses to look good," he said with a smile. "Your new name is George Adam Friel." He spelled it.

"George Adam Friel," Cuco repeated.

"You were 39 years old on your last birthday. Your father was a mining consultant. He came down to Paraguay with you and your mother. You have returned to the States many times, and you lived for a time in—let's say in Chicago. Lots of addresses there that are difficult to check. That is when you applied for and received your driver's license. Then you came back to South America because your mother or your father or both died. I would say one or the other. Less suspicious. And you stayed to settle the affairs. I will endorse your passport to show you have been away from the States on several trips. For this last one, I will provide you with documents for all the proper permissions and vaccinations and so on and so forth, for most of a year. You should have no trouble at the border."

"Where do I wait?"

"You want to stay in my house?" Despite his smile, Restrepo's words sounded disgruntled.

"Yes. I will need to call someone to arrange for a bank messenger with the money. Another twenty thousand?"

"Let us say—" Restrepo eyed him with the air of a man sizing up a purchase. "Let us say another thirty. For the rush. For the rush."

"Another twenty-five. Five thousand should buy a few hours of your time."

Restrepo's old face folded into an origami smile. "Let us not haggle. Another twenty-seven."

"Done."

"But arrange for the messenger to come to another place, not here. You understand? I want no is a café half a mile from here. The Café Palacio. I will direct you how to find it. You can get a small meal. You go there and wait. When the money is delivered, return here—alone. Ring the bell."

"I did not see a button."

"There is no button. Grasp the steel bars. They are touch-sensitive. The bell will ring, and I will let you in."

* * *

Dipper hugged Mabel, who was weeping uncontrollably. The horrifying thing was that Susan Flowers was not emotional about the terrible things she spoke of—how the snakes had come, how the dark had taken her, how it had changed her from a sweet girl who enjoyed the play-acting of performing the role of a death-metal singer to—to someone who expected whips and abuse and who took them with no pleasure, but a dark and twisted glee.

They couldn't learn much from her. Susan said that her husband—she called him Larry—had bought the cover from "CM," and when, guessing that she meant the stage name Corpse Melon, Dipper asked, "Carl Debbinzer?" she responded with a nod and whispered, "The devil."

She did not know where she was. She kept asking "Is Larry coming soon?" with a bright, wide smile. A completely terrified smile. An insane, inhuman smile.

* * *

The man who called himself Cuco had coffee and a sweet roll in the café. He sat for many hours sipping small coffees and reading newspapers. In early afternoon he strolled around the area and found a D1, a no-frills grocery store. He purchased a loaf of bread and had the clerk put it in a paper bag that was larger than it needed to be. He folded the top over and then carried it out, under his arm. He slouched like a tired man who had bought a loaf of bread.

He had not called a bank or asked for a messenger to bring the money, for there was no bank, no messenger, and no money. He had given Restrepo almost all the cash he had left. It was a necessity.

Cuco returned to the house and grasped the steel bar, as Restrepo had said. He heard a gong echoing through the house. Two minutes later the old man opened the two doors and the gate. His gaze locked on the paper bag. "Good," he said. "Let's have it."

"The documents are ready?"

"Ready."

"I want to inspect them first. You understand. Business."

The paper-folded smile again. "Yes. Business, of course."

They went back toward the kitchen, and the old man raised the removable trap door that opened to the stairs. Cuco stepped to the side, into the kitchen, and set the bag with the bread on the table and asked, "What kind of wine did you call that?"

Restrepo set the hatch aside and straightened. "Paxarette. Sweet, strong."

"I think I will have a _copita_ , with your permission."

"Surely, surely." The old man bustled over and turned his back for a moment, collecting another small glass and the bottle. His own glass still stood on the table. He poured both two-thirds full. "I have done a good job for you," he said, picking up not his original glass, but the one he had fetched from the cabinet.

"To your health," Cuco said, raising the other glass, and they touched rims. The old man tilted his head far back, his eyes closed, as his Adam's apple bobbed and he swallowed. Casually, while Restrepo wasn't looking, Cuco dropped something small into the mouth of the bottle. It briefly fizzed.

"It is very good wine, no?" Restrepo said after draining his glass.

Cuco nodded. "As you say. Perhaps a little more? A celebration of our agreement?"

Restrepo hesitated but then agreed: "Half a glass. It is hard to find."

Obligingly, Cuco poured a little more for himself, a little more for Restrepo, leaving perhaps six ounces of wine in the bottle. This time Restrepo reached for Cuco's glass. He smiled. "I mean no offense, but I take no chances."

"That is wise in you," Cuco said. They drank off the second sip of wine—for it was hardly more than a sip. Cuco set his glass down. "Now. To business."

Downstairs in the workroom, Cuco inspected the documents. He was not an expert, but even he could tell that they were very good. "Anything I should be careful about?" he asked.

Restrepo blinked. "Careful? No. Just—remember. Remember your name. Remember your parents' names, there on the birth certificate. Remember when and where you were born. I have a list of all the travels indicated on your passport. By the way, the passport will expire in—it is warm in here, I must check the thermostat. Climate control is imperative with, with documents that must not, um, fade. What was I saying?" He smiled. "The wine does not usually affect me like this."

"You took more than usual."

"No, I often drink two. Two, uh, two glasses. You don't feel dizzy?"

"No," Cuco said. He did not add that in the coffee shop he had earlier taken an antidote to the substance he had dropped in the bottle. "Perhaps you are distracted. Perhaps you can't help thinking about that big bundle of money up on the table."

Restrepo chuckled. "Yes, perhaps. Twenty-seven thousand, was it?"

"That's right."

"What was I saying?"

"The passport's expiration, and the list of my travels."

The old man's voice had become sluggish: "Ah. The passport is good for another six years. The list of where, uh, where your passport indicates you have been. Yes, yes, memorize that and destroy it. Make up, ah, stories to explain the travels. For this trip, I had you depart the United States through Miami—a big airline hub—in June of last year. Remember, you, you came to Asunción because of a death in the family. You stayed to settle the estate. You have a _visa en arribo_ the officials gave you at the airport in Luque _,_ properly endorsed, that allowed you a prolonged stay for family, uh, family and . . . and business purposes."

"Go on."

Restrepo spoke yet more slowly, like a man a little stupefied by wine. "Take care not to be too, ah, too precise. If asked when you left for Paraguay, it is better for you to say, 'Early June' rather than the real date, like 'June third.' People forget exact times and, um, dates. Even the . . . the death . . . of a father . . . people . . . always forget—"

He broke off, his mouth open, his eyes glazed, just staring into space.

Cuco leaned in and spoke some phrases in a language that Restrepo would not have recognized. The old man wobbled in his chair as he heard the strange chanted syllables, as his brain patterns changed in response to them. Then, in Spanish, Cuco said, "You hear me."

"Yes, I hear." Flat, toneless, without emotion.

"You must do as I tell you."

"Yes, I understand."

"Where is the money I gave you?"

"In the floor safe."

"Are these all my documents?"

"Yes."

"Are they really good ones?"

"Yes. The best."

"You cannot lie to me."

"I do not lie."

"Then let's go to the safe."

The safe was built into the concrete floor of the small closet, beneath another fake parquet panel. Restrepo opened it. Cuco took his own five thousand American dollars and found more American currency, a surprising amount. He ignored the hundred-dollar bills and instead took fifties and twenties, another three thousand dollars. He put the driver's license in his wallet and the passport in a special pickpocket-resistant inner pocket of his jacket. He closed and relocked the safe, then polished the fingerprints away with a handkerchief.

"Come. Lean down. Open the safe. Now close it again and lock it. Replace the cover. Good. Upstairs."

Cuco had Restrepo replace the trap door to the stairs and then wash the two glasses and drink the last of the wine, just a few ounces, straight from the bottle. Then he asked, "Where do you sleep?"

"Up above. Up the stair."

"Listen. This is what you will do. You must obey me."

"Yes." The voice was dead, without interest, without hope.

"You will do everything exactly as I instruct you to do."

"Yes."

"First, you well let me out and lock the steel gate and both doors after I depart. For the rest, pay attention." Without haste, without the least suggestion of malice, Cuco calmly told the old man how he was going to die.

* * *

Ford and the twins couldn't stand much more. Ford rang the bell and within moments, the nurse came. "Did she talk to you?" she asked.

"A little," Ford said.

"Poor thing. That's a mercy. She hardly says a word year in and year out. Unless she has one of her terrible nightmares."

At the front desk, Ford asked quietly, "Is Mrs. Blurchard very ill?"

The nurse bit her lip and then said, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but—yes. The doctor says she won't be with us for long. Maybe a few more months."

Ford handed her a card. "Take care of this. Put it in her file with a note. When the—the time comes, get in touch with me. She has no close family left. I'll handle the—the arrangements."

"God bless you," the nun said softly.

Ford nodded and led the twins out to the rental car.

"That poor woman," Mabel said in a voice raw with tears. She still shivered with grief.

"I just wish there was something we could do to help," Dipper muttered.

Behind the wheel, Ford took a deep breath. "She's beyond that. We can't help her," he said grimly. "No one can do that. Not after all this time. Not after the—the evil, unspeakable things they did to her. The only thing we can hope for is to make sure that this never happens to anyone ever again."

"It almost happened to Wendy," Dipper said quietly, and suddenly he was crying, too.

* * *

That afternoon, Mr. George Adam Friel arranged for passage to Mexico City. He would have to fly. He did not care for flying, and if all went well, this would be his only trip by air.

He carried only a backpack, no suitcase. He did not look exceptional in any way. Not important, and certainly not a target for thieves. Not a man who had the faintest hint of criminality about him. A very quiet, law-abiding man, one would judge. Amiable and soft-spoken and affable, they would agree. He expected no trouble with Customs or with airport security, and in fact he encountered none.

At the exact time he boarded the airplane, old Restrepo, who had sat at the dresser in his bedroom to write a short note, as instructed—"I have no more to live for. I regret my sins"—climbed a metal ladder attached to the wall of the stair landing, forced open a long-disused and rusty-hinged metal hatch, and stepped out on the flat roof of the building.

At this hour of the day, pedestrians crowded the sidewalk on the far side. The route was narrow, just an alley and not a major street, and so impatient drivers used it as a shortcut and drove recklessly and much too fast.

He waited until a truck came roaring. And then, knowing he would fly, Restrepo leaped. For a second, before the truck horn blared frantically and futilely, he laughed. It was so exhilarating to spread his arms and fly.

Except his flight did not last very long, and it ended tragically.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

* * *

 **(January 31, 2015)**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _After we left the nursing home, Grunkle Ford drove us a few places, we saw a few sights, and we sort of calmed down a little. He treated us to a fancy lunch at the Assembly Restaurant on the bay, but even Mabel didn't feel like eating much._

 _Then on the way home, he cautioned, "Don't show a sad face to your parents. It's better to keep people away from these paranormal events if they're not aware of them."_

 _We both acted happy when we got home around two. Ford visited with Dad and Mom for a while, and then he had to drive to the airport for his flight back to Portland and Gravity Falls. I should have waited to call Wendy, but just after Ford left, I couldn't stand it and texted her to ask if she had time to talk. And I admitted I needed someone to talk to._

* * *

Huddled on his bed, back against the wall and knees drawn up, Dipper answered the phone the instant it rang. "Wendy!"

"Hey, Dip," she said, her face appearing on his screen. It looked as though she were sitting in her car. It must have been cold up in Gravity Falls—instead of his pine-tree cap, she was wearing a knitted brown-and-white toboggan cap, and Dipper could see a green scarf wound around her throat. "What's wrong, dude?"

Dipper took a deep breath. "Oh, it's—it's really sad. Can—I shouldn't have even—are you where you can talk?"

"Yeah, went out to do the grocery shopping and I haven't gone into the store yet. Still sittin' here in the car in the parking lot. I got a few minutes."

"Will—will you be OK? You look dressed for the cold."

"Meh, sun's out now and I'm in the car, it's not bad. I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me, dude."

Dipper poured it out, hardly able to hold back the rush of emotion. Twice Wendy had to ask him to slow down, she couldn't understand, and with an effort he managed to get through the whole story. His voice trembling with rage, he finished, "He emptied her! Took away her mind. Left her just—just a shell of a person. And from what she said, it sounded like he did—horrible things to her. Beat her and, and worse."

"Oh, my God," Wendy said. "No wonder you're upset."

"Listen, listen," Dipper told her. "I can't think straight right now. Help me, please. Mabel doesn't want Susan—doesn't—want her to be left with nobody to—who—I'm sorry, Wendy." He took a deep breath. "Mabel doesn't want the poor woman left with nobody to ever visit her. She wants us to go up every week."

Wendy tilted her head, her green eyes bright with what might be unshed tears. "Can you get there?"

Dipper's throat ached. "We can take a bus. It's about a forty-five-minute ride each way. Yeah, we could—we could manage it, and I think Mabel could talk Dad into letting us go up on our own. But—oh, Wendy, I don't want to!" He bit his bottom lip, humiliated by the admission.

"Why not?" Wendy asked gently.

He could only shake his head. "It's so hard to see the poor woman the way she is. She—she's not in her right mind, and, and there's nothing we can do. I feel so bad for her. It's even worse for Mabel."

"Yeah," Wendy said quietly. "I can see how it would be. That's rough, Dipper."

"So—help me, Wendy—what should we do?"

Wendy thought for a moment and then asked, "Well, do you think visiting her would make her feel worse? Or better?"

"I don't know. I don't know if she can remember anything." Dipper swallowed. "I guess there's a chance it might help her. They said she hadn't talked any in the last months, but, you know, she—she talked to us." He didn't add his unspoken thought: _I wish I could unhear what she told us._

"I can't tell you what to do, Dip," Wendy said. "It's something only you and Mabel can decide. I just know that it'll be the right thing. 'Cuz I know you two, man."

"Yeah. I guess. We'll—if Dad and especially Mom agree—Mom will be the problem, I think—we'll try going up the next few weekends," he said. In an anguished near-whisper, he added, "I don't want to do it."

"Then why—"

"Because one thing I've learned is that when I _don't_ want to do something—that means it's something I _ought_ to do."

On his phone screen, Wendy mimed a kiss. "That's mature of you, Dip. And brave. Wish I could come down and help."

"No, no," he said. "You've got school and your family and all. I understand, Wendy. I just—I had to talk. I'm sorry for dumping on you."

"I don't mind. You know why.": She dropped her voice to a warm whisper: "'Cuz I love you, man."

That finally brought a sad smile to his face. "Love you, Lumberjack Girl. Better let you go before you freeze out there in the parking lot."

She grinned ruefully. "Yeah, gotta get back to Casa Catastrophe. Laundry never seems to get done when I'm not there!"

Now calmer, Dipper said quietly, "Thanks, Wendy. Thanks so much."

"Dude, I didn't do anything."

"You did more than you know. By talking to me. By being there. By being you."

* * *

Ford laded in Portland just in time to visit a branch of his bank before it closed. He told a teller, "I want to transfer a thousand dollars to a nursing home in San Pablo, California, to be credited to the purchasing account of a patient."

"Oh, so the patient can buy snacks and so on?"

"Yes, exactly," Ford said.

"We can do that," the teller said, reaching for a form.

* * *

And on the same day, just after nightfall, the plane from Colombia landed at Benito Juarez International Airport. George Adam Friel had flown in Tourist Class, and unlike the other passengers, he remained seated until he could bring up the end of the line shuffling down the aisle.

He presented his passport to the Customs officer, who asked in English, "Is your visit business or pleasure?"

"Pleasure," he said.

"And how long will you stay?"

"A week."

"Departing from here?"

"No," Friel said. "I will visit Tijuana and return to the States from there."

The officer, a squat man with a bandito mustache the color of black coffee, stamped his passport and returned it. "Next."

And Friel walked out into the night, a man with no fixed residence, no ties, untraceable. He did not even plan a way to get from Mexico City to Tijuana, or to plot how to cross the border into California without arousing the least interest.

The darkness would provide.

He had always trusted . . . the darkness.

* * *

 _The End_

 _(but we haven't seen the last of this guy)_


End file.
